Robin McKinley Quotes - Page 2

Quotes about:

• One doesn't generally look into mirrors when one is especially angry; one has better things to do, like pace the floor or throw things.

  Robin McKinley

  Mirrors, Looks, Pace

  6 Copy quote

• Mathin said: "It is best to take your opponent's sash. The kysin mark each blow dealt, but to cut off the other rider's sash is best. This you will do." "Oh," said Harry. "You may, if you wish, unhorse him first," Mathin added as an afterthought. "Thanks," said Harry.

  Robin McKinley

  Cutting, Blow, Wish

  4 Copy quote

• Oh, why does compassion weaken us?' It doesn't, really...Somewhere where it all balances out-don't the philosophers have a name for it, the perfect place, the place where the answers live?-if we could go there, you could see it doesn't.It only looks, a little bit, like it does, from here, like an ant at the foot of an oak tree. He doesn't have a clue that it's a tree; it's the beginning of the wall round the world, to him.

  Robin McKinley

  Wall, Compassion, Names

  7 Copy quote

• Vampire. Dangerous. Unknowable. Seriously creepy. This one's name was Constantine. We'd met before.

  Robin McKinley

  Names, Creepy, Vampire

  5 Copy quote

• Never assume. Never make plans. Keep doing the press-ups and deep knee bends: you'll need all your strength and flexibility when your life suddenly implodes. Maybe it won't — some people do lead enchanted lives — but odds are that it will. Some time.

  Robin McKinley

  Odds, People, Needs

  6 Copy quote

• With the knowledge of her aloneness came a rush of self-declaration: “I will not be nothing.”

  Robin McKinley

  Self, Declaration

  "Deerskin". Book by Robin McKinley, June 1, 1993.

  7 Copy quote

• It seems to me further, that it is very odd that fate should leave so careful a trail, and spend so little time preparing the one that must follow it.

  Robin McKinley

  Fate, Littles, Odd

  4 Copy quote

• Sometimes it is better not to know. Sometimes when you do know you just fold up.

  Robin McKinley

  Sometimes, Knows, Folds

  4 Copy quote

• My books happen. They tend to blast in from nowhere, seize me by the throat, and howl 'Write me! Write me now!' But they rarely stand still long enough for me to see what and who they are, before they hurtle away again. And so I spend a lot of time running after them, like a thrown rider after an escaped horse, saying 'Wait for me! Wait for me!' and waving my notebook in the air.

  Robin McKinley

  Notebook, Running, Horse

  4 Copy quote

• He grunted; she recognized it as relief that she wasn't going to nag him further about Tor the Just, who probably wasn't that boring if he could hold off the Notherners for nine days and melt a hole in the hills.

  Robin McKinley

  Relief, Nine, Hills

  4 Copy quote

• The weak grey light that serves as harbinger of red and golden dawn faintly lit my window. I fumbled for a candle, found and lit it, and by its little light saw that the rose floating in the bowl was dying. It had already lost most of its petals, which floated on the water like tiny, un-seaworthy boats, deserted for safer craft. "Dear God," I said. "I must go back at once.

  Robin McKinley

  Light, Water, Rose

  4 Copy quote

• What you describe is how it happens to everyone: magic does slide through you, and disappear, and come back later looking like something else. And I'm sorry to tell you this, but where your magic lives will always be a great dark space with scraps you fumble for. You must learn to sniff them out in the dark.

  Robin McKinley

  Sorry, Dark, Space

  Robin Mckinley (2002). “Spindle's End”, p.68, Penguin

  4 Copy quote

• So, what do you do when you know you have two days to live? Eat an entire Bitter Chocolate Death cake all by myself. Reread my favorite novel. Buy eight dozen roses from the best florist in town--the super expensive ones, the ones that smell like roses rather than merely looking like them--and put them all over my apartment. Take a good long look at everyone I love.

  Robin McKinley

  Eight, Cake, Two

  4 Copy quote

• It doesn't matter if I'm only to be gone four days, as in this case; I take six months' supply of reading material everywhere. Anyone who needs further explication of this eccentricity can find it usefully set out in the first pages of W. Somerset Maugham's story "The Book-Bag.

  Robin McKinley

  Book, Reading, Needs

  4 Copy quote

• Cigars should be like onions," she said, unfastening the catch and pushing back the pane. "Either the whole company does, or the whole company does not.

  Robin McKinley

  Onions, Pushing, Doe

  Robin McKinley (2016). “The Blue Sword”, p.16, HarperCollins

  4 Copy quote

• Can you trust me, he said. Not will you. Can you. Can I trust him? What do I have to lose?

  Robin McKinley

  Trust Me, Said, Loses

  4 Copy quote

• I've always been fascinated by the grassroots folktale level of a culture, and as a storyteller, I have to follow what seems to be leading me on.

  Robin McKinley

  Culture, Levels, Grassroots

  4 Copy quote

• Beauty: "You called me beautiful last night." Beast: "You do not believe me then?" Beauty: "Well - no. Any number of mirrors have told me otherwise." Beast: "You will find no mirrors here, for I cannot bear them: nor any quiet water in ponds. And since I am the only one who sees you, why are you not then beautiful?

  Robin McKinley

  Beautiful, Believe, Night

  4 Copy quote

• I said with perfect honest, "I have no intention of trying to take these suckers out by myself, no.

  Robin McKinley

  Perfect, Trying, Honest

  4 Copy quote

• As I have said, you have no reason to trust me, and an excellent reason not to.

  Robin McKinley

  Trust Me, Reason, Excellent

  4 Copy quote

• Yes, I am letting my own experience color my answer, which is what experience is for.

  Robin McKinley

  Color, Answers, My Own

  Robin McKinley (2014). “The Hero and the Crown”, p.154, Open Road Media

  4 Copy quote

• Why do you tell me... so much?" Luthe considered her. "I tell you... some you need to know, and some you have earned the right to know, and some it won't hurt you to know--" He stopped.... "Some things I tell you only because I wish to tell them to you.

  Robin McKinley

  Hurt, Wish, Needs

  4 Copy quote

• My sheets had never been so clean as they had in the past few months. I hardly got them on again before something else happened and I was feverishly ripping them off and stuffing them in the wash with double amounts of soap and all the "extra" buttons pushed: extra wash, extra rinse, extra water, extra spin, extra protection against things that go bump in the night.

  Robin McKinley

  Past, Night, Water

  4 Copy quote

• Tell me who you are. You need not tell me your name. Names have power, even human ones. Tell me where you live and what you do with your living.

  Robin McKinley

  Names, Needs, Where You Live

  4 Copy quote

• What was she to say? "The prodigal has returned? The mutineer wishes to be reinstated? The subordinate, having gone to a great deal of trouble to prove her commander wrong, has come back and promises to be a good little subordinate hereafter, or at least until next time?

  Robin McKinley

  Promise, Wish, Gone

  4 Copy quote

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